


The Portrait

by FaerieChild



Category: Lord John Series - Diana Gabaldon, Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-23 05:17:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23006347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaerieChild/pseuds/FaerieChild
Summary: When William's Grandmother commissions an artist to paint her grandson's first portrait, Jamie finds himself unexpectedly needed up at the Big House.A short story in two parts set after the events of The Scottish Prisoner. Part 1 is Jamie-William focused. Part 2 includes the perspective of Lord John Grey.
Relationships: Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser, Jamie Fraser/Lord John Grey
Comments: 36
Kudos: 129





	1. Chapter 1

Part 1

Jamie heard Roberts coming down the path before he saw him. That combination of a heavy footfall and heavy breathing as the senior footman hurried down towards the stables, somewhat out of breath.

Behind the exercise yard Jamie was out in the paddock with a pony on a long line watching her movement carefully. He let her slow down naturally and moved towards her to give her a pat as a reward just as Roberts arrived at the fence.

“Mackenzie! You’re wanted.” Roberts paused to get his breath back and waved vaguely towards the big house.

“Might I ask who wants me?” Jamie pretended disinterest and gently went about taking the pony’s halter off and coiling the rope in his hands.

After all, Jamie knew the answer.

“Lady Dunsany sends her apologies but insists it is most urgent.” Roberts hesitated, breathing heavily. “I believe its to do with his Lordship.”

Now in proper breeches and with his words coming along very well, The Ninth Earl of Ellesmere was to have his first official portrait painted, a commission by his grandmother Lady Dunsany of Helwater. The Earl, William, was a spirited lad and had a stubborn trait a mile wide and a temper to boot. ‘ _I wonder where he gets that from,’_ Jamie smiled to himself. His mind went to Claire, and his other child, and Jamie sent his usual silent prayer up to heaven. ‘ _Lord that she might be safe. Her and the child.’_

Jamie forced himself to remain calm outwardly while inside his mind ran through all the possibilities, all the terrible things that might have happened to the lad – or that the lad might have done in an attempt to get his way. His Grandmother and his Aunt Isobel were hardly a match for the lad and poor Betty did her best but none of the ladies in the house seemed to have had much previous first hand experience of dealing with small boys. Well, Jamie reminded himself, that wasn’t quite true. The Dunsany’s had had a son once. But that was a long time ago and Lady Dunsany was getting on in years and slowing down.

If it was up to Jamie that lad would be outside running about instead of cooped up all day in that nursery. But Jamie knew well enough to pick his battles. He knew that between the family’s own consideration towards him and John’s close relationship with the Dunsany’s he had more influence over William’s life than most men in his position would ever enjoy.

And more time with him.

Jamie went about his business, climbing over the fence and putting the tack away in its rightful place before doing the best he could to dust off the hay and tidy himself up for going up to the big house. At the back door, Jamie had been going to extend the courtesy of taking his boots off, but that was before the kitchen door was thrown open at his imminent arrival and a harried looking cook ushered him in with a ‘never mind that’ over the sound of hell itself being raised upstairs. “Lady Dunsany sent word you were to go up at once.”

Jamie knew that he wasn’t well liked by much of the Helwater staff. Oh they respected his skill with horses but they also knew he was extremely physically imposing, a former soldier, a Jacobite, and worse than that he didn’t doff his cap and show the proper respect due his _betters._ Still, since Jamie’s absence in the preceding months and his time away under the parole of the Grey Brothers, the other staff could not help but notice a slight change in the dynamic between Mackenzie and the family. A softening, of sorts.

“He’s been going on like that for half an hour,” Cook muttered as Jamie passed, shaking her head at the sound of a screaming toddler echoing through the whole house.

Jamie was slightly impressed with the lad’s stamina. Although personally he reckoned the best way was just to let the lad be and he’d wear himself out and fall asleep. Still slightly bemused by being asked to come into the big house on His Lordship’s account, Jamie was led up to the morning room by one of the footmen who cast a dark look at Jamie’s boots being on indoors.

Rarely had Jamie – _A_ _lex Mackenzie_ – been inside the house itself. The room he was shown to was large, bright and well appointed and was clearly a room the family spent some time in. Inside were Lady Dunsany, Isobel Dunsany and poor Betty looking fraught and red in the face with little wisps of hair falling out as she struggled to hold it together in front of the family.

On the other side of the room was an artist, set up with all his things to face a chaise-longue angled so as to get the best light from the window. The surroundings of draped cloth and an oddly placed bowl of fruit indicated that this was the artist’s set up for the portrait.

The artist himself looked like he had completely given up. “I simply cannot work under these conditions,” He impressed upon Lady Dunsany as Betty valiantly tried to restrain a screaming, red-faced William. There was already shattered crockery and Lady Isobel was rubbing a sore patch on her shin through her petticoats. William was on the floor, fighting his way out of Betty’s arms and screaming as if hell itself was trying to eat him up.

Lady Dunsany and Isobel looked up at the door opening with twin looks of relief. Jamie took a moment to take in the whole scene before him. He looked at Lady Dunsany for a long moment with a question in his eyes and in return she gave him a slow nod.

Without wasting a moment Jamie strode forward, grasped a flailing ankle and promptly lifted the lad five feet in the air.

The room fell utterly silent, the sheer shock at finding himself upside down being enough to stun William into silence. Jamie could see the lad’s mind turn in confusion.

“Your Lordship,” Jamie addressed him formally.

There was a hiccup, and a sniffle, and then a snottery giggle. “Mac!”

William began wriggling, trying to right himself and desperate to see his friend.

The artist looked appalled; William looked delighted and at length Jamie let the lad down, keeping a firm grasp of one arm. There was little need. William barrelled into his leg and slung both arms around it, sniffling and gasping for air in the wake of his tantrum.

Jamie gently pried the arms off his leg and pushed the lad far enough away that he could look into his eyes. “Now, what’s all this about?”

William hiccupped and tried to hug Jamie again but Jamie knew a bit of tough love was in order. “Grandmama wouldn’t let me,” _hiccup, “_ Play with,” _hiccup._ The explanation descended into a mumble about toys and the nursery.

“Aye, cause right now you’ve got a very important grown up job to do.”

“No!” William stamped his foot and tried to lash out with a wee fist but Jamie’s reactions were quicker. He scooped the lad up in his strong arms and held him tightly. “Aye,” Jamie said and held William firmly.

If they were on their own Jamie would have had no compunction in dressing the lad down about his behaviour. Other times, a mere distraction worked well enough. William loved nothing more than to help him mind the horses, always wanting to do whatever Jamie was doing. Mucking out, sweeping the floor, mixing up hot mashes of oats and hot water and molasses.

Now mindful of the family watching him, Jamie made his way over to the chaise-longue and sat down upon it with William on his knee. William’s exhaustion was starting to come upon him now and this time he didn’t struggle but sat on Jamie’s knee, leaning into Jamie’s belly and content with Jamie’s arm around his waist.

Jamie had to admit that getting any small child to sit still for long enough to get their portrait painted must be a trial at the best of times. Trying to complete the task with William would require endurance nobody involved in the endeavour had probably considered.

Behind him, Jamie heard Lady Isobel suggest Betty take a few moments to tidy herself up and ushered the poor nanny out the door leaving Lady Dunsany alone with William and the artist.

All too easily Jamie found his attention taken up with the lad. If he had been at liberty to do so, Jamie would have quite happily sat with the lad on his knee for hours. It seems that William felt the same. He sniffled again, and hiccupped, and leaned into Jamie’s chest.

There would be a time to speak to the lad about apologising to his grandmother, but right now Lady Dunsany seemed most eager to ensure the artist started the portrait at all, for Jamie could only imagine the man walking out altogether at this point before the painting had been started. The inner peace he felt in the little lad’s presence, the love that welled in his heart for the child in his arms was something that made him yearn for Claire.

William was sitting quietly, playing with the buttons on his waistcoat. An entirely different child to the one of a short while before. Jamie pulled the wooden rosary from his pocket and gave William that to play with instead, thinking mostly of preserving the lad’s teeth should he shove something in his mouth and less of the horror of their visiting artist at the revelation that their best groom was a Papist.

The artist seemed slightly lost for words, looking between William and Lady Dunsany as if the family matriarch would provide an explanation. Out of the corner of his eye, Jamie saw the Mistress of the house shrug. “It would appear that Mackenzie has a talent for calming children as well as horses,” Lady Dunsany said simply. “He has his quirks of course, but we would be quite lost without him.”

William looked up then, watching Jamie’s face. “Horsey?”

“No, lad,” Jamie said with great softness. “Later, Aye?”

William’s face twisted in the first sign of discontentment but Jamie shushed the lad with soft words of comfort and a large hand rubbing his back and as he did so the artist retook his seat and picked up his sketch book.

“Well I suppose I may as well get a few preparatory sketches done,” The artist sat down with great care and lifted his paper.

Jamie looked to Lady Dunsany as if for assistance but she made a gesture that indicated he should stay where he was and rang for tea.

“Perhaps you might like to observe his Lordship’s riding lesson later,” Lady Dunsany suggested to their guest. Jamie was less than happy at the prospect, but he supposed it wasn’t up to him.


	2. Chapter 2

Part 2

Twice more, on two separate occasions over the next few weeks, Jamie found himself called up to the Big House for William’s second and third sittings. Sometimes William could be persuaded to sit in the correct place on his own, distracted by a toy or something going on outside the window. More often than not he was climbing over the furniture, hiding in the drapes and lashing out with those fierce wee fists at anyone who dared defy him.

At one point Jamie’s sat with his fingers grasping the back of William’s breeches as his mighty wee legs tried to power him out the door to escape and Jamie couldn’t help but smile at the lad’s hope of outrunning Jamie’s grip. His eyes had accidentally met with Lady Dunsany’s and Jamie couldn’t help but notice she seemed more than a little amused at watching him interact with William. From time to time in the afternoon now, she would make the walk down to watch William’s lesson and Jamie would carefully hoist the lad by the waist up onto his pony and back down again at the end. For all that he was terrifying with his family, William was rather good with the horses. Gentled, somewhat, by their presence.

Several times, aside from the official sittings, Jamie spied the artist sitting quietly with his sketchbook in the vicinity of the stables as Jamie kept William busy with sweeping a floor or grooming a horse.

When it was time for Lieutenant-Colonel Lord John Grey to make his quarterly visit, William’s portrait was nearly done. Jamie found himself blushing slightly as Lord John Grey walked in on him sitting once more in one of the grandest rooms of the house in his ill-fitting grooms clothing bouncing a laughing William on his knee.

“I see his Lordship is in good form,” Lord John smiled at the sight of them and made a formal bow as the appropriate introductions were made. When Jamie made to get up, Lord John waved him down and settled himself in a satin-covered chair near Lady Dunsany.

“And how is the portrait coming along?”

“Very well, Lord John,” Lady Dunsany smiled. Then, seeing Lord John had every intention of settling in for a while, Lady Dunsany slowly stood up with the great effort of someone whose body was slowing down and asked Lord John if he would mind sitting in for a while. It was Betty’s half day off and Lady Isobel was nowhere to be found.

Jamie felt John’s eyes on his. But he found it did not make his stomach curl in disgust as it once had. The events of recent months had built a bond of trust and respect between them that Jamie was beginning to value more and more with every visit.

“I have been trying to persuade my grandson that it is unbecoming of the Ninth Earl of Ellesmere to command his groom to dangle him upside down by the ankles, but as being dangled upside down it seems to be William’s favourite thing next to riding, at present, I am having some trouble persuading William of the merits of my argument.”

A smile tugged at the corners of Lord John’s lips and he caught Jamie’s eyes with a questioning look. “Indeed?”

Jamie gave John a long-suffering look that made the man laugh. As Lady Dunsany made her slow way out of the room to hunt down Isobel, Lord John waited until she was gone before coming around to inspect the progress on the painting. Jamie had not seen it himself. His mother, Ellen, had been a fine artist but Jamie’s time in the Big House was entirely taken up with keeping William under control.

Before long, the artist declared that he had everything he needed. An irritable Isobel hurried in, briefly acknowledging Lord John and scooping William up to be taken for his nap before Jamie could say a proper goodbye.

For a moment Jamie sat, staring at the empty doorway and then seemed to gather himself and got up to go. Lord John called to him but Jamie insisted he needed to get back to the stables and Lord John had to content himself with the hope of a chess game later, perhaps, once Jamie’s duties were done.

Standing alone in the morning room, Lord John heard the distant cluttering noises that indicating the servants were preparing Luncheon for the household. Outside horses grazed in the fields, the rising hills of the Cumbrian fells providing a scenic if somewhat lonely backdrop for the Helwater estate. Upstairs, William could be heard fighting with his Aunt Isobel as she tried to change his clothes.

The artist began gathering his things as Lord John inspected the portrait. The final details needed completed, but it was a remarkable likeness. In outward appearances, William was the spitting image of his mother. It was only in those who knew Jamie well that they would see the mark of his bearing, his temperament, and the likeness in the cheekbones to the boy’s natural father. “I painted his mother, you know,” The artist explained as he packed up his things. “The young Earl bears a most startling resemblance to his mother, though I think he takes after Ellesmere with that temper of his. Always one to fly off the handle I’m sorry to say.”

“You think so?” Lord John bit his lip at this pronouncement, but the artist seemed to have barely noticed that John had spoken.

“Mackenzie is a remarkable fellow. Striking, wouldn’t you say? I must confess I find myself astonished at the liberties they allow in his engagements with the Earl but after seeing the boy’s temper one can see how such things begin to take hold. Anything for an easy life, as they say...”

Lord John made a neutral sort of humming noise that was neither agreement nor disagreement and then found his attention drawn by the artist’s elbow knocking a leather folder as he put his things away, causing several pieces of paper to come loose and fly out across the room. Lord John assisted in picking up the sheafs only to find himself stalling at the image he clutched in his hands. A simple sketch, in pencil in that skillful way an experienced hand could elicit an image with a mere few strokes of pencil on paper. Jamie, with William sitting on his knee, clutching Jamie’s rosary. Jamie’s arm round the boy’s waist, and expressions of contentment on both their faces. Another of William riding, an action pose with a look of deep concentration on William’s face, his short legs splayed out and barely extending over the pony’s belly as Jamie turned the pony on a long line, paused mid-motion with extended arms, showing the stretch of muscles beneath his shirt as he turned.

Startling in their simplicity and the humanity of the natural poses. They showed something rather touching, a moment of stillness and a moment of action. A love, of sorts. Lord John stilled. He wondered that art could do that. Betray such feeling in the slightest image. The sketch made Lord John’s chest ache just to see it, and he knew that he could never let these drawings go.

“I don’t suppose there’s much point telling that groom that only heartbreak comes of treating the Household’s children like your own?”

“No, I don’t suppose there is,” Lord John agreed. “May I have these?”

The artist tried to pluck them out of Lord John’s hand, having gathered the rest but Lord John was reluctant to let them go. “Begging your pardon, Sir, but those ones aren’t for sale.”

“Are you quite sure?” Lord John pressed.

The other man hesitated.

“I know the work of a fine hand when I see it. These are most skilfully done.”

“Thank you, Sir, but as I said...”

“I assure you that you would be paid most handsomely,” John pressed. Lord John hesitated, his chest swelling with emotions. He had no portrait of Jamie, after all. And Jamie need never know. “I believe the appropriate phrase is, _sentimental reasons_ ,” Lord John tailed off, quite willing to tug at the odd heart string where necessary.

The artist looked at him, as if for the first time, with deeply appraising eyes. “I do see, Sir. Sentimental reasons, as they say.”

  
“Quite so,” Lord John forced a smile. Allowing the silence to press upon the moment. “Of course any such purchase would be for my private collection, not for public display.”

“Well,” The artist stretched himself up to his full, rather stout height and then with a grand gesture of sorts opened the folio containing several pages of sketches. “As long as it won’t be displayed in public, I suppose in that case we could probably come to some sort of arrangement. With the works being unfinished and all. Merely preparatory, you understand.”

John’s hand reached out and couldn’t help but admire the outline of Jamie Fraser. The face might be unfinished, but everything else about the man – his stance, the movement, the action of the moment was Jamie through and through.

After settling in and taking long minutes to flick through all the many half-finished sketches of horses, and hands, and outlines of people - so many of them plainly Jamie, or William, or Isobel, or Lady Dunsany - John had resisted the temptation to bribe the man into selling his entire folio of sketches and had instead settled on two. The first, of William and Jamie with the horses was rolled up with John’s things, safely tucked away in his rooms. The second, John had other plans for.

Later that day, after the chores were done and the household was well on its way to bed, Lord John Grey sat opposite Jamie Fraser in the Helwater tack room with a borrowed table between them and a chess board laid out. They played long into the night, the whisky lubricating the laughter between them. John could not help the way his heart lightened at seeing Jamie’s behaviour change towards him. His increasing ease in John’s presence. The way Jamie’s eyes would linger on him for long moments. It was too soon, far too soon for John to start testing the boundaries, but it was a nice feeling all the same.

Jamie of course outsmarted him. John was no slouch at chess and Jamie was a worthy opponent who caused John to tip over his king some time late into the night. They lingered, speaking softly for fear of waking the other grooms and, at length, John slid what he had brought across the table.

“What’s this.”

“A gift. If you’ll have it.”

It was watching the look in Jamie’s eyes, John decided that made loving Jamie Fraser worth it. If he was indeed consigned to love such a man.

Jamie’s eyes deepened, meeting John’s with a soft exhale of breath. It was the exquisitely rendered sketch of Jamie with William on his knee, William clutching the rosary in his hand. His face at peace.

“I spoke to the artist. Told him I wanted a couple for sentimental reasons. He agreed on the conditions that they never be displayed publicly.”

In spite of Jamie’s attitude towards John in the first years of their acquaintance, John could not help but strive to make him happy. To do what he could, at least, for Jamie’s health and happiness. In small ways. For the longest time Jamie hadn’t been of a mind to appreciate that. John had been yelled at, resented and defied at every turn. Only since their time in Ireland, and the task that had brought them together, did Jamie seem to begin to believe – and appreciate – John’s concern for his wellbeing.

“John,” Jamie looked up at John, his eyes deep with emotion.

“Don’t bother telling me I can’t because I can and I have.”

“I will put it in my bible,” Jamie decided. “Thank ye, John. It means more than I can say.”

John reached out a hand beside the chess board as he had done once so long ago. This time however, Jamie did not flinch or pull away or threaten him with bodliy harm. In fact, there was no reaction at all.

“Really, John, I could kiss you.”

“Well, I mean, if you insist...” John began to joke, enjoying seeing the joy on Jamie’s face. It lifted his mood just to see Jamie happy. In far too deep, he knew, but there was nothing to be done about it at this point. At least, he was beginning to hope, Jamie was beginning to think of him with more kindness. It was more than John had dared believe possible, so long ago. Even if ye yearned for so much more.

John had been thinking that Jamie was joking, but then Jamie was beside him and Jamie’s scent in his nostrils and Jamie’s lips on his cheek and Jamie’s hand on his shoulder. “I’m going to bed John. Goodnight. And thank you.”

John sat there for a long time, reluctant to go back to his room. Listening to Jamie make his way up to the loft, listening to him open his chest and make a space in his things, the sound of someone leafing through pages that indicated the promised bible. The sound of Jamie bedding down for the night.

John watch the flickering candle burn low and felt the echo of a press of lips on his cheek, and the silent resonant memory of the laughter of a child.


End file.
